Obituary
by Mornwey
Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated...but not everyone survived the battle...
1. Daily Prophet

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Prologue - The Daily Prophet**

With the headlines splashed across every page – _Dark Lord Defeated, Wizarding World Rebuilds After War_ – people were so caught up in celebration that few noticed the obituary, still faithfully printed amidst all the happiness:

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_The _Daily Prophet_ regrets to announce that the following people were killed in action:_

_Lovegood, Luna_

_Lupin, Remus_

_Malfoy, Draco_

_McGonagall, Minerva_

_Moody, Alastor_

_Potter, Harry_

_Tonks, Nymphadora_

_Weasley, Frederick_

_Weasley, William_

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And the few that did notice found no room in their hearts for celebration.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	2. George

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 1 – George**  


People say we're lucky to have lived, after the carnage of that final battle. They're wrong in every conceivable way. I may have survived, but in no way could my existence now be called _living_. I might be able to survive without my twin, but I can't_ live_. Not really.

He wasn't the only family member who died. We lost Bill too…and Harry, who was practically family. And I feel a little guilty because I'm not mourning them. I _can't_, not with half of my soul missing. I'm not who I was any more, I can't be, I'm missing something I'll never be able to cope without, I…I…Merlin, I'm not even making sense any more, I can't think straight.

I can't function properly alone. I end my sentences halfway though, expecting you to be there to pick them up where I left off. I'm permanently off-balance because I can't quite make myself understand that you're not there beside me. I can't crack jokes or even crack a smile; half of a double-act is less than nothing. I'm not even really _me_ anymore…after all, weren't we always defined in terms of each other? I was never just George, I was always one half of Fred-and-George.

Ever since we were little, we were The Twins. We were a unit, a package deal. There were times when even we weren't sure which one of us was which because we were so used to being called by both names. It was inconceivable to think of us separately…we weren't brothers; we were one person in two bodies.

How could you leave me, Fred? We were supposed to go together, we knew since we were children that however we died it would be _we_. Not one of us left as an empty shell, unable to live without the other.

How could you abandon me like this?

**Oh gods, that was horrible. Poor George.**

**Next chapter will probably be Ron or Ginny**

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	3. Fleur

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 2 – Fleur**

Eleven months. I had been married eleven months when my husband was murdered.

I knew, of course, that he was dead. But seeing it in print in the newspaper made it real in a way that I was not yet prepared to deal with. I am a widow at the age of twenty.

The other deaths have touched me too – I mourn the loss of the charming twin who was never at a loss for eloquent or witty words, the brave boy who rescued my beloved baby sister from the depths of the lake, the half-breed wise beyond his years who spoke with such sincerity at our wedding. But for me the loss, first and foremost, will always be that of my husband because I loved him with a passion I had never thought myself capable of.

Before I met him, I never thought I would know a man who loved me instead of just desiring me; who wanted me for my mind and spirit as well as my body. I hated my own beauty for this very reason until he showed me that a beautiful face means nothing without a beautiful heart…and even scarred as he was, to my mind he had both.

My sole regret is that I was not with him when he died, but I accept that there was no way I could have been. I would have risked my own life without a second thought if it was required of me, but under no circumstances will I risk the life of our child. And thus, in spite of my losses I feel a curious optimism. My husband is not truly dead, not when I carry his child beneath my heart. The baby will be a girl – do not ask me how I know. I just do.

I think I will call her Hope.

**I know I said I'd write Ron or Ginny next, but Fleur was demanding my attention, haughty little Veela that she is…**


	4. Ron

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 3 – Ron**

I knew the war would be bad. I knew there would be some losses. But I never expected my family to be torn apart like this.

Dad barely ever speaks any more; Mum and Ginny are half insane with grief. We lost Bill and Fred…and we might as well have lost George too, because there is _no way_ the stranger walking around wearing his face is my brother. He just can't cope without Fred. Percy still won't talk to us. He says that none of this would have happened if our family hadn't made ourselves targets. And much as I hate to say it, he's sort of got a point.

I mean don't get me wrong – I know how much I would have hated myself if I sat and did nothing while Harry and Tonks and Lupin and everyone else went off and died to defeat You-Know-Who. In the end I wouldn't have been anywhere else, but our family might have been better off if we'd never gotten involved. But I suppose it's selfish to think like that.

I sometimes think that Fleur's baby is the only thing keeping Mum from loosing it completely. I know I'd probably have lost it as well if it wasn't for Hermione – I don't know how I'd cope without her. I honestly do love her…don't look at me like that, it's more of a brother and sister thing. I never really had a chance with her; shame I didn't realise it earlier. But I saw the look on her face when Malfoy got killed.

You wouldn't have thought it, would you? Hermione and Malfoy - bloody hell, even inside my head it sounds crazy. But as much as I hated the little git, he took the curse that was meant for her and it killed him. I'll never like him, but I suppose I can respect him. Even if he hadn't saved her life…I'm not sure if _I'd_ have had the guts to betray You-Know-Who.

Funny how these things work out. Just a year ago I would have thought I'd be happy to see the little ferret dead. And deep down, I think I am just a little bit. But I'll never, _ever_ admit it.

I owe Hermione that much.

**Next chapter will feature…actually I have no damn idea. Any requests?**


	5. Hermione

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 4 – Hermione**

Here we are – it's over. The war is at an end and, now maybe we can rebuild, make the Wizarding world the way it should be. The last loose ends are tidied up; the Death Eaters are in Azkaban, the Horcruxes are destroyed… Voldemort is finally, irrevocably _dead_. So why doesn't this feel like a victory?

In my naïveté I had thought we would have a fairy-tale ending; that once the bad guy was dead we would all live happily ever after. Isn't that what's supposed to happen?

It shouldn't have been like this, one of my best friends dead and the other watching his family tear itself apart. It shouldn't have been like this, good people sold to the darkness to stem the flow of blood. It shouldn't have been like this, the only person I'll ever love cold and broken in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere.

It hurts all the worse, not only the grief but the _guilt_. That curse was meant for _me_ – it should have been _me_ that died with the others that night. I don't think I'll ever stop seeing the scene in my nightmares. I was petrified, unable to move as I stared down the length of a wand into merciless eyes behind a blank white mask, unable to evade the roaring green death that came rushing towards me. I wasn't afraid to die…but then he came out of nowhere, crashing into me and knocking me aside. The curse took him full in the chest.

And that was it. _Avada Kedavra_ – dead.

Completely in defiance of my better judgment, I loved the arrogant little bastard. Rather ironic really, when you consider all the times I've wanted nothing more than to hex him to within an inch of his life. Somehow, in the last few months of the war with us working side by side, it became obvious that a little trust was necessary. From there, friendship was inevitable. But neither of us expected anything more until one morning we were waking up in each others' arms and trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Love comes and smacks you in the face when you least expect it – Cupid is a poor marksman.

I don't regret it, though, and I hope I never will. But even so…

…it's going to take me a long time to get over this.

**Next chapter: Molly Weasley**

**I can stand people who read and don't review. But adding the fic to your favourites or alerts without reviewing…do you have _any idea_ how frustrating that is? I swear; I will not post another _word_ on this unless I get some decent reviews!**

**And once again, feel free to request a character. It won't take me long to run out of ideas**


	6. Molly

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 5 – Molly**

I've never minded being poor – I always thought that as long as I had my family I didn't need anything else. So where does that leave me now, with two of my sons dead and a third as good as? People say that nothing compares to a mother's grief, but they've clearly never seen someone mourning their twin.

I was never much of a fighter, and it was probably wise of the Order to keep me out of the final battle. I would only have been in the way. But logical reasoning doesn't stand much of a chance against survivor's guilt. I can't help but think that things might have been different if I'd been there, that maybe I could have saved some of them. And the ones who were only killed were the lucky ones – some of the 'survivors' might never recover from what they endured.

I sat in the kitchen of the headquarters for what seemed like forever until dead-eyed survivors began to arrive and fill me in piece-by-piece in hollow, emotionless voices. The fact that we had one seemed to be the last thing on the minds of people who had actually fought. It was the fates of our loved ones the rest of us were interested in. I heard fractured scraps of information as people arrived and departed: Bill was dead. Seamus Finnigan was in St Mungo's, and might never wake from the coma he was in. Charlie was in St Mungo's, covered in blood from head to toe. Minerva McGonagall was dead. Draco Malfoy had died to save Hermione. It took eleven Death Eaters to bring down Mad-Eye Moody. Remus and Nymphadora had died fighting back-to-back, knee-deep in bodies and curses. Fred was dead, and after the fact not a single Death Eater had gone up against George and lived. Neville Longbottom had killed Bellatrix Lestrange, who had killed Luna Lovegood. Harry was dead. Voldemort was dead.

Voldemort was dead. We should have been rejoicing about it, but we couldn't. We had all lost so much that celebrating anything seemed unutterably obscene.

My family is a shadow of what it once was. And no matter what the 'victory', I don't think it will ever recover. I will freely admit that Fleur's baby – my first grandchild – is the only thing keeping me sane. But still, I have to be strong. I may not have been deemed enough of a fighter to be a part of the battle, but that doesn't make me weak. When we finally come through, I'll be the one holding the family together. I've been the matriarch of the Weasley clan for more than twenty-five years and that is not a responsibility taken lightly. My own pain is secondary. I have a job to do.

I will _not_ lose any more of my children.

**Next chapter: Narcissa Malfoy**


	7. Narcissa

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 6 – Narcissa**

So this is how it feels to have lost everything.

Husband dead, son dead, only my blessedly unmarked forearm and the tender mercies of the Order saving me from Azkaban. I should grieve, I should weep, but I feel nothing except an odd, empty peace. And is it petty of me to smile at the thought that the Malfoy line, tainted beyond recovery by evil and infamy, will finally die out as it should have done years ago? Perhaps so, but it is thoughts like this that keep me sane now I have lost my only son.

I truly believe that raising Draco is the only thing in my life I ever did right. I was the perfect little Pureblood daughter in public all though my childhood, but in reality the only members of my family I ever really admired were Andromeda and Sirius. I wished that I could have been like them, could have had the strength to defy centuries of senseless tradition as they had. In the end I did, I suppose, but it came too late. It was painful to sneer at the very mention of their names with the rest of my family when all I had ever wanted was to be like them. I was too much of a coward to follow my heart.

Sirius and Andromeda: both, I learned later, met their end at the hands of my eldest sister. Bellatrix was a prime example of why inbreeding is a bad idea. She was never particularly sane even as a child but Azkaban pushed her over the edge completely. I know I shouldn't have taken any satisfaction in her death, but I did and I make no apology for it. She was a disgrace to the family, or rather she should have been, and would have been if the family itself hadn't been a disgrace to wizardkind. I am the last of the Black line now that Andromeda's daughter has joined her parents in death – dear Nymphadora. She had been the sweetest child anyone could have known, but I hadn't dared to see her more than once.

I have taken my maiden name back after my husband's death – with our son dead, the only thing that would have tied me to his name is gone. It is good to be a Black again.

Perhaps, somehow, I can redeem our family name.

**Next chapter: Ginny Weasley**


	8. Ginny

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 7 – Ginny**

People expect me to be upset that Harry's dead…and I _am_. But mainly I'm monumentally pissed off at him.

I mean don't get me wrong, I cry constantly and the thought of going out with anyone else sickens me. The thing is, though, that I keep remembering how he left me after Dumbledore's funeral because of how dangerous it was for us to be together. And I gave in like the idiot I am…if we hadn't split up we could have had a whole year together – I suppose if we'd really thought it through we would have decided to try and have some happiness while we still had the chance.

After all, that's what Bill and Fleur did. That's what Tonks and Lupin did. That's what Hermione and Malfoy did. So why the hell didn't we learn from the example of damn near everyone around us and made the most of the time we had? Just because we weren't together at the time wouldn't make it any easier for the survivor – in fact it made it worse!

Of course it's easy to see your mistakes after you're made them.

So here I am – alone. The worst thing about all this is that there's no-one to comfort me. Mum's an emotional wreck and Dad isn't much better. Bill's dead, Charlie's still in St Mungo's, Percy isn't talking to us. Fred is dead and George is as good as. And it doesn't seem fair to seek consolation from Ron, since he was closer to Harry than I ever was. So anyway, that's it for immediate family. Fleur? Dead loss – she's still grieving for Bill. Luna? Dead. Hermione? Malfoy…why she wanted anything to do with the slimy little rodent is beyond me, but that isn't really the point at hand. The point is that everyone's got enough to deal with without me inflicting my problems on them.

Family falling apart, boyfriend dead, and all my friends either dead as well or up to here in problems of their own

Looks like I'll have to deal with this on my own. But I can, I know I can. I'm not just going to fall apart – I'm stronger than that, I have to be. Perhaps…perhaps the best thing to do would be to comfort everyone else. Then when I finally fall apart they'll be together enough to help me when I really need it.

I can keep it together for a little bit longer.

**Next chapter: Petunia Dursley**


	9. Petunia

**Obituary**

**Summary: The Dark Lord is defeated…but not everyone survived the battle…**

**Fandom: Harry Potter**

**Pairings: To be decided**

**Warnings: Major character death, probably bad language**

**Disclaimer: I own nada**

**Author's Notes: After this chapter, I'll do the reactions of various characters to the deaths. Want to see a particular person? Ask and you shall receive…**

**Chapter 8 – Petunia**

It had been a perfectly normal day – more normal than any other I'd had since my sister's spawn was deposited on my doorstep. And then the owl arrived.

Ever since I had first seen one, owls had always to me been the bringers of bad news and ill fortune. An owl had brought the letter that took my sister away from me. One had brought the horrible knowledge that we had failed to set her son on the straight and narrow. And now one was perched insolently on my kitchen counter as my hands trembled and tightened around the letter it had brought, bearing news I was in no way prepared to hear. My nephew was dead.

I didn't particularly like the boy: I'm not going to pretend he was anything other than an annoyance for most of his life. I couldn't have been happier if he'd walked out of our door and never returned…but liking the idea of not having to deal with someone is a _long_ way from wanting them dead.

I'd never been particularly nice to the boy, never given him the love and the happy family he should have had. But even so, despite everything about him that drove me insane, the fact remained that he was my sister's son…and now he was gone. I should have taken better care of him. I should have been his _aunt_ instead of just his keeper.

I'm sorry, Lily. I truly am. But I was never as brave as you, and magic frightened me. Maybe if I'd been a little more like you, your son would have survived. Maybe he wouldn't be with you now.

I'm so sorry.

**Next chapter: Charlie Weasley**


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